[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the word ``outrage'' used 
several times on the House floor, and I rise tonight to talk about the 
outrageous prices that American consumers pay for prescription drugs. 
And I have behind me a chart, and I apologize for those here on the 
floor and Members who may be watching on their television sets, it is a 
little hard to read. But I want to go through this because what it 
compares is what Americans pay, on average, and this varies because we 
have a very complicated average wholesale price situation formula they 
use here in the United States, but these are the average prices, and 
these are prices that we actually checked ourselves.
  People have questioned some of the credibility of the sources that I 
have used. So we did our own research and we went to Munich, Germany 
about a month ago, and we bought 10 of the most commonly prescribed 
drugs in the United States. And let us run through.
  Cipro, drug made by Bayer. They make the aspirin. They are a German 
company. In the United States, the average price for 10 tablets, 250 
milligrams, $55. We bought it at the Munich airport pharmacy for 
$35.12, American.
  Coumadin. My 85-year-old father takes Coumadin. In the United States 
the average price, $89.95. The price in Munich, Germany, $21.
  Glucophage, a very popular drug, has done wonderful things for people 
who suffer from diabetes. Glucophage, $21.95 in the United States, only 
$5 in Germany.
  Pravachol, $62.96 in Munich; $149.95 here in the United States.
  The list goes on, Prozac, Synthroid, Tamoxifen, $60 in Germany; $360 
in the United States.
  Zocor, $41.20 in Munich; $89.95. It is the same drugs.
  My father takes this Coumadin every day. It is a wonderful drug. Many 
Americans take Glucophage, and the Congress has spoken on this. We have 
statutes on the books that would allow Americans access to these drugs 
at world market prices, but the FDA and the Department of Health and 
Human Services, under first a Democratic administration and now a 
Republican administration, has said, oh, no, no, we cannot do that, we 
cannot guarantee safety.
  So we are introducing a new bill and we want to deal with that issue 
because we want Americans to have access to safe world-class drugs.
  What I am holding in my hand is a counterfeit-proof package. There 
are companies right now that are helping people, like our own Treasury 
who helped develop the technology that goes into our new counterfeit-
proof $20 bill. They now have packaging which they are making for the 
pharmaceutical industry. For a cost of somewhere between 2 and 5 cents, 
they can make a blister-pack, counterfeit-proof package.
  It goes beyond that. They are coming out with new technologies that 
are not only counterfeit-proof, but it is tamper-proof. So we can bring 
these drugs in and the technology will get better to make these drugs 
safe. For example, I am holding in my hand a little vial, and in this 
vial my colleagues cannot see it, I can barely see it. Inside this 
little vial are 150 microcomputer chips. This is the next UPC code so 
that we actually embed it in packaging, so that we can know where this 
product is made, where it came from, everything we need to know about 
it. It can be counterfeit-proof. It can be tamper-proof, and now it can 
be virtually fail-safe.
  People say, well, what about safety? Every day we import thousands of 
tons of food, and the FDA is responsible for the food and drug safety 
in the United States. We import tons and tons of food. Last year, we 
imported 318,000 tons of plantains, and somehow we eat those plantains 
every day, and we do not worry about the safety.
  We can import world-class drugs. I am a Republican and I think that 
there is nothing wrong with the word ``profit,'' but there is something 
very wrong with the word ``profiteer.'' I think it is right that 
Americans pay their fair share of the cost for research in the world, 
but we should not have to subsidize the starving Swiss.
  We have an opportunity in the next several weeks to do something 
about this. The greatest tragedy in America today is that roughly 29 
percent of all seniors tell us that they have had prescriptions that 
went unfilled because they could not afford these outrageous prices.
  Shame on us. Shame on us. We should do something about that. We have 
the power to change this, and I think this year we finally will.

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